Student Dies In Millikin Frat House Fire

DECATUR, Ill. — A Millikin University student died in a fire that broke out early Thursday as he and 20 other students slept in a fraternity house just west of campus.

Firefighters rescued one student who was trapped on the third floor of the Kappa Sigma fraternity house, and other residents of the house escaped unharmed.

But rescue workers were unable to save Nicholas Schwalbach, 21, of Downstate Glen Carbon, later found in his third-floor bedroom. He was a senior in communications.

Local officials said they did not yet know what caused the fire, which appeared to have started in a common area on the third story of the house. Alarms sounded on the first and second floors of the building, but the house did not have a sprinkler system, according to Decatur Fire Chief Les Albert.

Firefighters responded to a report of the fire around 4:20 a.m. and found two students trapped on the third floor, Albert said. They saw one student in a third-story window and were able to get him out, Albert said.

That student was treated for smoke inhalation at a Decatur hospital and released.

As firefighters extinguished the blaze, fraternity members watched from a professor's house nearby.

Word of the fire spread quickly through the small Presbyterian school, where students were preparing for the start of summer classes on Monday.

"This is a university, but it is a small and close-knit one, and this loss ripples widely," university President Thomas Flynn said. "No words can express adequately our sympathy for the pain being experienced at this time."

Schwalbach, a graduate of Edwardsville Senior High School, worked in the university's marketing and communications office. A fraternity brother called him the heart of the club.

"If the Kappa Sigma chapter had a heartbeat, the source of its pulse was Nicholas Schwalbach," said fraternity member Jay Claytor.

Residential fires are of particular concern on college campuses, where young residents and old buildings combine to create an increased risk. Between 1980 and 1997, there were an average of 1,800 fires each year on U.S. college and university campuses, according to statistics compiled by the National Fire Sprinkler Association.

Those fires resulted in a total of 17 deaths and 1,173 serious injuries, according to the group's figures.

In the wake of a February dormitory fire that killed three students at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, some members of the U.S. Senate began pushing for funding to help pay for the installation of fire sprinklers in college dormitories and fraternity and sorority houses. But a proposal to make $500 million available for that purpose has not yet passed either house.